Abstract
After a long period when the treatment of major mental illness was under the decisive influence of the biological revolution in psychiatry, there are now growing signs of a revival of the role of psychotherapy in understanding the lived experience of psychotic disorders. Despite increased attention to the subjective world of persons afflicted with severe mental illness, considerably less has been written about the devastating effects of a loss of reality on memory and meaning and about the especially complex ordeals facing therapists who enter into long-term relationships with clients cut off from the past and the future. The ensuing quest for meaning amid the breakdown of memory is the focus of this paper.
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Horowitz, R. Memory and meaning in the psychotherapy of the long-term mentally ill. Clin Soc Work J 34, 175–185 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-005-0007-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-005-0007-3